SnapPea 3.0 uses the Python language to allow users
a choice between a graphical user interface for interactive
work, and a scripting environment for batch computations.
As an example of the latter, one can now easily write
a small script to test a conjecture on all manifolds
in SnapPea’s census.

SnapPea 3.0 will run anywhere Python is available.
So far I have tested it only on Linux, but compiling
it for other versions of Unix should be trivially easy.
(In theory Python is available on Windows and Macintosh,
so running SnapPea 3.0 should be easy on those platforms
as well, but I won’t make any promises until I have
it working. Advice and assistance are welcome.)

Many thanks to Nathan Dunfield for suggesting Python,
and patiently helping me with my stupid questions.
And many thanks to the National Science Foundation
and the MacArthur Foundation for their financial support.

5 July 2004:
Ben Burton reports that the graphical user interface, which
uses the Pmw package, works with Python 2.1 but not
with Python 2.2 or 2.3. The scripting interface, which doesn’t
use Pmw, continues to work with all versions of Python.
If you need to get the GUI working,
let me know and I’ll send
you Ben’s (easy!) instructions for migrating to a newer version
of Pmw.